Al Gore is considering a proposal to end the stalemate over Florida's vote count that calls for George W. Bush to agree to a manual recount in the whole state if the vice president renounces any further lawsuits, the Los Angeles Times said yesterday.
Citing Gore campaign aides, the Times said that under the approach being discussed, Gore would not join litigation challenging the "butterfly ballot" in Palm Beach County and would support efforts to recount the ballots by hand in all of Florida's 67 counties, rather than just the four counties being scrutinized.
In return, Bush's campaign would drop its legal efforts to block the manual recount.
Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who is observing the recount for the Gore campaign, knocked down the report in television interviews yesterday.
"That's news to me," he told ABC's Good Morning America, adding that such rumors were bound to surface during tense situations such as the Florida vote recount.
However, he added: "Since our aim here is to have a full, fair, accurate count, if the suggestion was made that we do that on a state-by-state basis, it's certainly something that we would want to look at."
"But I emphasize, that's news to me."
The Los Angeles Times said Gore aides have already sounded out the Republican's team, which is apparently divided over the idea. One Bush aide said some people in the campaign have been discussing such a deal themselves, and that it could be a real option, the Times said.
But another aide said the Texan's campaign was unlikely to accept a statewide hand count because it would conflict with Bush's current position that manual counts are unreliable.
Still, Bush aides left the door open, presumably in case their attempts to stop the manual recounts should fail.
Gore has not yet made such an offer to the Bush campaign, but a Gore adviser said the idea might become attractive to both sides if they reach a legal stalemate in the next few days, according to the Times.
On Monday, Bush asked a federal judge to block the manual recounts underway in three counties where Democrats believe the Gore vote may have been undercounted, but the judge refused.
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